


Critical Role Drabbles

by aunt_zelda



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:24:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 7,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9290186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: Various drabbles I've been writing from prompt games. Multiple characters, pairings, and rating levels.Tags to be updated as I go, table to contents as the first "chapter," any major warnings will be put on the specific chapter.





	1. Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Table of Contents

Chapter 2: Raishan/Percy (prompt - old)

Chapter 3: Raishan/Percy (prompt - eggs)

Chapter 4: Percy (prompt - brother)

Chapter 5: Percy (prompt - mirror)

Chapter 6: Percy (prompt - "the knife in my back / it reminds me of you")

Chapter 7: Percy/Raishan (prompt - craving)

Chapter 8: Percy/Senokir (prompt - status)

Chapter 9: Vax & The Raven Queen (prompt - drawing of Vax on a riverbank)

Chapter 10: Gilmore/Vax (prompt - shameless)

Chapter 11: Vax (prompt - magic)

Chapter 12: Vax, Vax & The Raven Queen (prompt - struggle)

Chapter 13: Vax (prompt - black)

Chapter 14: Pike & Grog (prompt - class swap AU)

Chapter 15: Percy/Pike (prompt - empty)

Chapter 16: Percy (prompt - faint)

Chapter 17: Vax/The Raven Queen (prompt - paper)

Chapter 18: Percy/Pike (prompt - tongue)

Chapter 19: Percy/Vex, Percy/others (prompt - true)


	2. Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: old.   
> Pairing: Percy/Raishan
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)

It’s her eyes that betray her. 

No matter the form she takes, her eyes give away her true nature. There are too many lifetimes lived, too much destruction, such great knowledge, to be contained in the blank stare of her disguises. Something about it always shows in her eyes. Her face might be young but her eyes are ancient. 

It takes Percy far too long to realize that she is showing him on purpose. Alerting him to her presence, and him alone it would seem. (Vax, usually so perceptive, missed her completely in her dwarf shape.)

So, that begs the question, why she is revealing a sliver of her true nature to him. Is it a taunt? A constant warning of her threat, and promise, to destroy his home? That seems so crass for one such as her. She is too old to have misjudged him, to think he would need reminding. 

“Why do you want me to recognize you?” Percy asks one evening in the library. She is curled up by the fireside in the shape of a woman, slight and dark, with braided black hair. 

“You’re the clever man, can’t you guess?” she smirks, with altogether too many teeth for her form. 

“Sloppy,” Percy comments, returning to his book. The back of his neck prickles. One does not chastise the greatest predator in the world and not become acutely reminded of one’s status as prey. 

“Is that really what you think?” she unfolds from her chair. She moves too sinuously for a human, even for an elf. 

“Of course not. You are many things, Raishan, but you aren’t stupid. Everything you do has a purpose, a plan. Probably dozens upon dozens of schemes.” Percy looks up, as she perches on the edge of his table. “You’ve lived this long, that means you’ve survived plenty of creatures who thought they could outsmart you.”

“Clever man,” she reaches forward, and Percy forces himself not to flinch away. She catches him by the chin, stares into his eyes. “Maybe I just like seeing the look on your face.” Her eyes flicker, shifting entirely reptilian and emerald green.

Percy gulps.

She shifts her hand, resting it against his throat. “I can feel your blood, coursing up and down, up and down …” her fingers flutter in time with his pulse. 

Eventually, Raishan hops off of the desk and wanders away. Percy wonders if he was just very lucky, or very unlucky.


	3. Eggs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: eggs. 
> 
> (I had this idea of like, what if Percy got carried off by Raishan and she spent years toying with him until he decided he liked being her favorite shiny and they reached a kind of agreement and he became her liaison to the human world. I really gotta expand that into a full fic someday.)
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)

The man is dressed in green and black. His hair is long, bright white, and tied back in a long fishtail braid. His face is not as old as the hair coloring would suggest. 

“We thought you ought to know, my lord,” the Spireling said, gesturing to the wooden box packed with straw. “Dragon eggs are cause for alarm, but green dragon eggs? We are not suicidal.”

“Mhmmm,” the man glances over the box and nods. “And the dealers?”

“One is dead already.”

The man glares. 

“Unavoidable, my lord, I assure you. He heard of your arrival and … well, fear overpowered him.”

“I want his body. Load it, and the eggs, onto a cart.” The man glances disdainfully at the two cowering traders on the floor. “You two will pull the cart. You will not speak. You will not try to run. Understand?”

They nod.

The man nods to the Spireling and leaves the room.

The cart ride is silent, but for the sobs of one of the traders. At the edge of the swamp, they stop. 

“My lord, please, kill us here.” One trader begs. 

“You snuck into our den, you stole from my lady. I will not rob her of her right to your bodies.” The man hefts a strange metal weapon in his hands. It clicks ominously. “Keep walking.”

Raishan, the Deceiver, is in her full form when they arrive at her den. The traders sob and cower in their chains as the man gently lifts the crate of eggs and places them near Raishan’s belly. 

“My most loyal creature,” Raishan rumbles, prodding the man in the chest with her smallest claw. “You found them so quickly.”

“It was challenging. Quite the hunt.” The man smiles. “I chased them through three cities before I found them.”

“Clever man,” Raishan looks at the traders. “They will not provide much of a challenge for me, not in chains. Release them, let them flee.”

The man unlocks the chains. “Run,” he advises. 

“My lord, please!”

“Run,” the man hefts the metal weapon, “or I will hobble you first.”

The traders flee into the swamps.

Raishan tugs the man back into the cave. “The eggs yet live. Well done.”

“Do you wish me to accompany you?” the man asks.

“Not this time.”

“Very well. Good hunting.” The man shoulders his weapon and crouches close to the eggs. “I will guard them.”

“Yes, you will.” Raishan stretches her wings. “For the rest of our lives, Percival.”


	4. Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: brother. (Originally written at the end of November.)

Percy had three brothers. 

He remembers Julius. His serious face, the way he was always trying to imitate mother and square his shoulders like father. Percy thinks that Julius would have been better at all of this, ruling Whitestone and managing a war. 

He remembers Oliver. Always trying to drag him outside to the woods or the town. Percy regrets not going with him more often, regrets all the hours he wasted in the library alone with his books. 

He remembers Ludwig. When he looks at Cassandra he is reminded of how tall Ludwig would have stood, had he been allowed to grow up. 

He remembers them, though it is so painful to remember. He remembers them because there was a time when he didn’t remember anything at all, and that was worse than them being dead. Them being forgotten, cold in the ground and him wandering around not remembering they ever existed, that was the worst thing. 

Percy had a brother-in-arms. 

He remembers Tiberius. He remembers his fussiness, his bluster, his intellect. He remembers bailing him out of jail. He remembers Tiberius’ passion, his dedication, his loyalty. He remembers, fondly, the way Tiberius objected to the team’s habit of nicknaming. He remembers seeing his body high on a spike, before any of the others noticed it. 

Percy has three brothers. 

Scanlan, he knows, is older than he, though the gnome dances around by exactly how many years that is. Scanlan is so much older, and yet seems like a younger brother, running off and getting into trouble. And yet he is the one who steps forward to take charge when Percy cannot, who is the leader Percy can never be. Scanlan is his brother. 

Grog, for all his posturing and belligerence, is his brother too. The sort of brother who will tackle you, mess up your hair, tease you in front of girls, but fight to the death in defense of you against any foe. Percy is often the most frustrated with him, but the most grateful for him as well. Grog is his brother. 

Vax is a twin to Vex by blood, but a twin to Percy in spirit. Percy sees so much of himself reflected in Vax, the good and the bad. He sees a far better man than he will ever be. He sees a champion of a goddess. He sees, perhaps, a future relation by marriage. But most of all he sees a brother.


	5. Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: mirror.   
> Warnings: paranoia. 
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)

Percy has an odd relationship with mirrors. As a boy he hated being dragged in front of one, forced to examine his clothes for spots and blemishes, fixing his dark hair over and over. He and Cassandra used to pull faces in them, laughing at each other and trying to get each other into trouble. 

As a young man, he often stares at his reflection. Not out of vanity, though Vex and the others tease him for that. He stares because his face is so alien to him. 

His shock of white hair still looks so unfamiliar, so strange, like old family paintings at Whitestone of his ancestors. He looks like an ancestor, not a living man. 

There are scars on his face that he doesn’t remember getting, and on his neck. Some from being knocked unconscious, some from fights alongside Vox Machina that he did not notice in the heat of the moment. Most though, are from Ripley. 

Too often, there is stubble: something his father would have thrown a fit over. He looks rough and ragged. He does not look like he should. 

His eyes, mostly obscured behind his thick glasses, have deep bags beneath them. When Percy has time, he leans towards a mirror and stares into his own eyes, searching, seeking. Afraid to find anything but more frightened not to look.

He once saw Orthax there, in his eyes, a billowing cloud of darkness. Orthax started in his eyes before progressing elsewhere. 

Orthax is gone. Orthax has no claim on Percy any more. 

Still, Percy checks, over and over, for the signs. If he misses the signs, Orthax might return and take control of him completely, use his body like a puppet. Percy might wake in front of a bloodstained mirror, hands drenched in still warm gore. 

So Percy stares, and searches, and seeks. 

Let them tease him for his vanity. It is far better than the truth.


	6. "the knife in my back / it reminds me of you"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "the knife in my back / it reminds me of you"  
> Warnings: violence, mentions of torture, mentions of self-harm
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)
> 
> I have this idea in my head of an AU where Raishan carries Percy off after their deal and makes him her favored shiny piece of treasure in her horde, and eventually after years of struggle he makes his peace with this and becomes her liaison to the human world. And decades of time as a dragon's consort starts to have effects on him.

Percy has been stabbed many times. 

Once, when he was a boy and playing with his brothers - he can no longer recall which of them - they were reckless and suddenly a knife slipped, and sliced into his arm. He’d been too shocked, and too well bred, to scream and carry on, had sat through his mother’s lecture as his father had bandaged the wound. 

He learned to scream from Anna Ripley. She favored knives, as well as other toys, but took particular delight in sinking her blades into his skin. To the hilt, sometimes, twisting them about, and forcing healing potions past his sobbing lips so she could do it all over again. 

On the fishing boat, he was stabbed on occasion, always by accident. With fish scattered on the decks and knives flying about, it was inevitable. The scars were never that deep, but they always jostled him from his numb fugue, echoes of the wounds Anna had left on him. 

As a member of Vox Machina in the early days he was kept to the back of fights for the most part. A ranged fighter with his guns, known to be weaker than most of the group, it was the most sensible option. “Squishy” the goliath called him, affectionately. “Brave, bloody boy,” the cleric called him as she healed his wounds, smiling up at him with a peaceful quality he envied, and hated himself for envying. Once a bandit stabbed him, and after the fight Percy pulled the dagger from his side and handed it off to Vax, thinking the rogue would have better use of it than he, before smiling thinly and passing out in the middle of the road. “Pincushion,” Vax had christened him after that, looking at him sideways with concern, “stop letting people leave their knives in you, it’s not healthy.” 

Cassandra stabbed him in the heart. Metaphorically. He wonders sometimes if she’d have done it literally, had the Briarwoods asked it of her. 

He no longer recalls if Kynan stabbed him or not, with Whisper. It’s not as though it really matters. It was Anna Ripley stabbing him all over again, just by proxy. 

When Raishan stabbed him in the back, he was not surprised. He felt her plunge the dagger into his skin once, twice, three times, felt the air leave his lungs and the blood begin to pour down his skin.

“Mine,” she hissed, dragging him from the room and out onto the balcony. “Mine,” she roared, taking her true shape and leaping into the air, with him limp in her clutches. 

Now he knows that dragon claws pierce deeper than even Anna Ripley could get. 

It isn’t until he’s dealing with a duplicitous branch of the Clasp in a far flung city, so many lifetimes after that fateful day, that he discovers being stabbed with a dagger no longer endangers him. 

The trembling rogue blinks down at him in shock, at the knife buried to the hilt in Percy’s chest. 

_Pincushion …_ Vax’s voice drifts through Percy’s mind. _Stop letting people leave their knives in you, it’s not healthy …_

Percy wrenches the knife free, already feeling the wound close up, before using the blade on the rogue. 

He takes the knife with him when he leaves. Maybe later Percy can plunge it into a spot between his ribs and remember, just for a moment, the man he used to be.


	7. Craving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: craving. (Originally written at the end of November.)
> 
> So ... how 'bout that "Raishan carries Percy off and makes him her consort after decades of toying with him" AU?

“Bring me an elf.”

“No.”

Raishan raised her head up and leaned down. “You defy me? After all this time?”

“That’s rather why I’m still alive, aren’t I?” Percy stood firm on the floor of the cave. “You find my defiance amusing.”

“Often, yes. But this is not a request.”

Percy glared up at Raishan, and said nothing. 

“Consider it a … a test of your skills.” She shifted. “If you can successfully entice an elf to my lair, think how impressed I shall be with your capabilities.” 

That was true enough. Deceiving an elf all the way to a dragon’s lair would be an impressive feat. 

“You’ve never asked for an elf before.” Percy said, tugging on his ponytail. 

“I’m _hungry_.” Raishan growled. “I haven’t consumed an elf in _decades_. And I want one. I want one _now_.”

Percy sighed heavily. “And nothing else will do?” 

“No. Will you go fetch one? Or shall I go lay waste to the nearest village and make you listen to their screams?” 

Percy strapped on his guns and shouldered Bad News. “If I’m not back in three days, something dreadful has happened.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m certain you’ll manage to rescue yourself from it.” Raishan purred, settling down into her nest. 

Percy strode out into the woods, towards the nearest city. Somewhere, there was a very unlucky elf to meet.


	8. Status

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: status.   
> Pairing: Percy/Senokir  
> Warnings: negotiated slavery, mild violence, powerplay, allusions to past torture
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)
> 
> Had this idea of, what if Senokir's deal was that one of them had to be his slave for a day, and Percy volunteered and Senokir smiled because he'd wanted Percy anyways.

“You are ... nobility ... are you not?"

Percy pauses in his work. Senokir is behind him, hovering very close. That is his right, for the next nine or so hours. 

“Yes … master.”

Senokir makes a small contented noise at the honorific. “I can … see it. In the way you … hold yourself. Your … bearing.”

Percy’s shoulders tense. 

“You are … too proud.”

Percy flinches at the hand on his shoulder. Senokir’s palm is warm, even through the fabric of Percy’s shirt (he left his coat inside the mansion, partly to keep it safe and partly because of the damnable heat of the Fire Plane.) 

“You wear my chains … but you … resist … my rule.”

Percy forces himself to relax, to bend to the pressure on his shoulder. “Apologies, master.”

“Words are … wind. I require … action.”

Percy sets down the tools. He had hoped, against all hope, that Senokir merely wished to utilize his tinkering skills for the day. 

Senokir’s hand moves to Percy’s hair, fingers tangling in the tufts and finding a decent hold. It’s almost soothing, in a bizarre way, until Senokir _yanks_. Percy stumbles to stand up from the bench and follow Senokir’s lead, his cuffed hands flailing in the air. 

“Kneel.” Senokir tosses Percy to the floor in a backroom of the shop. 

Percy rises to his knees, keeping his eyes downcast. 

“Someone … trained you …” Senokir catches Percy by the chin and forces his face up. Percy keeps his eyes fixed to a point on the wall far away. “Ah heh … heh … heh …”

Percy stays frozen in place. There is nothing the genasi can do to him that hasn’t already been done before. The thought is not as comforting as he would wish. 

“Someone … cruel …” Senokir crouches down at eye-level with Percy.

This startles Percy enough that he makes eye contact. Senokir’s eyes, burning though they are, seem … sad. 

“I know … something … of that.” Senokir caresses Percy’s face with the back of his hand. “You should not … fear me.”

Senokir stands. “Back to work.” he gestures to the front of the shop.

“As you command, master,” Percy bows his head and slowly gets to his feet. 

Senokir darts forward, pressing a kiss to Percy’s forehead. His lips burn. Percy vaguely wonders if there will be a mark. 

“You are … too proud.” Senokir pronounces. “I am … too weak.” He gives Percy a light shove forward. 

Percy gets back to work on the jewelry tinkering.


	9. (drawing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: drawing of Vax naked on a riverbank with his wings out. (will link to drawing if it becomes publicly available)
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)

It ought to have been a pond, he knew. Stagnant water was best for this. Death and decay, with hints of life. But there hadn’t been a pond for miles and so the river would have to do.

“Needs must.” Vax sighed to himself and began to strip out of his armor and clothing. He removed the ties from his hair, letting it fall down around his shoulders. Then, taking a deep breath, he summoned his wings. 

Flexing them out, stretching the wingspan, he felt less naked, but no less exposed. He knelt on the riverbank, sinking his hands into the water, and prayed. 

As the cold water began to numb his hands, the chill sinking into his bones and up his arms, he felt Her. 

_My Champion._

Vax opened his eyes, but he did not see the river or the forest. He saw a dark chamber, a pool of red blood, and The Raven Queen.

She was not in her towering form today. She wore her mask, her cloak of feathers, or perhaps those were her feathers truly, and seemed to walk within the shadows of the room. 

“My lady,” he bowed his head.

“So formal,” her hand found his face, turning it up to meet the black pits in her mask where her eyes hid. “Even still. Yet when you first addressed me, you called me a ‘bitch.’”

Vax blanches at the memory. It is still raw, no matter how many years he moves past it. 

“I am … trying to make up for that, my lady. I apologize for my rudeness.”

“It is my own fault. I knew who you were, when I took you under my wings.” She reaches out with her other hand, caresses Vax’s wings. “Do they pain you?”

“No, my lady.”

“Good. I would see you soar. For my honor, and your distinction.” She turns him around, runs her hands over the feathers, works her fingers into the spots where Vax’s shoulders and skin turn to wing and down. 

Vax feels a pulse of power run through his body. His knees buckle, and her cold arms wrap around him, keeping him upright as if he weighs no more than a raven. 

“You may fly for much longer now, if you wish it.” Her breath is a chill breeze against his neck. 

“Thank you, my lady.” Vax gasps. 

“Fly high, my champion.” She pushes him suddenly forward.

Vax lurches, as if waking from a dream of falling, and is at the riverbank once more. 

Panting, shivering, Vax dresses and arms himself once more.


	10. Shameless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: shameless.   
> Pairing: Gilmore/Vax
> 
> (Originally written at the end of November.)

Gilmore has been privileged to share a bed with many men over the years. (How many years? More than he’d care to admit to most, but that is neither here nor there, and he’s rather settled into the role of a mature lover.) Some have been generous, some have been selfish, some have played games with no purpose other than teasing. Some have been hesitant and halting, unsure of themselves. Others have put up a veneer of prudishness before allowing Gilmore to topple them onto a mattress. Increasingly, especially in bustling cities, men are becoming bolder in their approaches, which Gilmore much prefers to the teasing games of his youth. 

Vax’ildan, it turns out, is bold. From the way the man has flung himself into danger so often on his quests, Gilmore supposes he ought to have expected him to be as forward in his romantic pursuits. 

“Please, let me suck your cock.”

Still, it’s rather an adjustment from their previous flirting banter.

Gilmore looks down at Vax, who is kneeling on the bedroom floor between his legs. Vax makes a very pretty picture like this.

“Hmm, should I let you?” Gilmore ponders, running his fingers through Vax’s long hair. (He does so love a man who provides a good hand-hold.) “I think you can beg more prettily than that, Vax’ildan.”

Vax makes a choked noise in the back of his throat and lays his head against Gilmore’s thigh. “ _Please_ ...” he whines, needy, insistent. 

Gilmore aches to give in, but he likes this back and forth, seeing how far Vax will go. “Ask me again, more artfully.” 

Vax looks up at Gilmore, fire in his eyes. When he next speaks, the words are in elven. Vax describes, in florid, poetic detail, how much he hungers, how his mouth waters, how good he imagines Gilmore is going to taste filling his mouth and cresting into his throat. 

It’s enough to make even as experienced a man as Gilmore blush. 

“... very well.” Gilmore manages, voice taut. 

Vax smiles smugly, and leans forward, taking Gilmore’s length into his mouth. 

Gilmore groans and yanks on Vax’s hair, urging him further on.


	11. Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: magic. (Originally written in early December.)

Vax has always been fascinated by magic. He loves watching those skilled in the craft work, or sometimes channel, magic.

Magic is unique and different for each practitioner, even the same spell does not look the same when utilized by two different people. 

Keyleth’s magic is wild, bombastic and messy and, in the early days, sometimes as uncoordinated as the young woman herself. The raw power she wields can be staggering to witness. Vax sometimes watches her practicing, awestruck by her strength. 

Gilmore’s magic is just as glorious as the man himself. Vax didn’t realize until much later how powerful the man was, behind the flamboyance and showmanship. Gilmore is incredibly dangerous, and so important, and yet he deigns to spend his free time with Vax. 

Magic comes easily to Scanlan. Sometimes Vax can’t tell where the music ends and the magic begins, so intertwined are they with the gnome’s skills. Scanlan weaves and spins and creates tapestries in the air. … and sometimes he flips people off with a giant purple hand. 

Percy’s magic is something he doesn’t like to talk about. Vax knows that Percy wouldn’t call it ‘magic,’ and doesn’t like to think about it. But flinging a Hex at an opponent is magic, whether the man likes it or not. Percy doesn’t trust magic. Percy doesn’t trust himself. Vax is always keeping an eye on Percy, especially when he uses magic, in case the black smoke returns. 

Pike’s magic is, like most things Pike does, beautiful and inspiring. She channels light and shines like a beacon of hope. Sometimes Vax has to look away, it’s too much, she’s too much, he feels like his eyes will start to burn from her brilliance. To this day, Vax doesn’t know whether he wanted to pledge himself to Sarenrae because of the Goddess, or because of Pike.

Vax’s own magic is … strange. Exhilarating. Frightening. Daunting. Freeing. The Raven Queen has given him wings, but he flies on her leash, tethered to her at all times. She has given him the ability to heal, but he cannot bring back his friends if they fall. He can mark his enemies like his sister now, but it has all come at a cost. 

Vax has always been fascinated by magic. And now that he wields it himself, he respects it all the more.


	12. Struggle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: struggle.   
> Warnings: suicidal ideation, allusions to suicide 
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)

Vax has struggled all his life. 

He struggled in the village as a child. He briefly struggled to be a dutiful son, and then struggled with the fact that his father did not love him and thus did not deserve Vax’s respect. Vax struggled in school, in lessons, in etiquette. He struggled to keep Vex’ahlia safe, first from their father, then from their teachers, then from the other children, and then from threats from the Clasp. He struggled to stay safe in a world that was often harsh and unkind to two young half-elves alone and largely unprotected. 

He also, sometime during all of that, struggled to live. 

Other people seemed to find living easy, as easy as sleeping (another thing Vax has struggled with in life.) Vax has struggled with living, with staying alive, with keeping himself from danger. On some days, Vax struggled to put one foot in front of the other. 

He struggled to form a band of companions, for safety and money and then for friendship and family. He struggled to hold them together through dangers and deaths and rifts. 

He struggled with his feelings of love for several people over the years. For Gilmore, for Keyleth, for Percival, for Pike, even for Scanlan and Grog at times. Vax struggled with his inability to limit himself to a single target of affection, to staunch the outpouring of love from himself towards so many people in his life. 

Something he did not struggle with was the decision to give his life for his sister’s. That was one of the easiest things Vax ever did, clinging to Vex’s cold lifeless body and looking up into the blank mask of a goddess. He gave his life away as easily as exhaling a breath. 

He struggled with waiting. He expected to drop dead the moment Vex’s eyes opened. Then he expected to not be allowed to leave the temple, to die on the threshold. Then he expected not to last the first night, to be taken at moonrise, or in his sleep. Vax struggled with patience, with accepting his impending doom, for surely it was death that awaited him at the Raven Queen’s hands. He struggled to continue living, to walk beside his friends, to look any of them in the eye, knowing that at any moment the Raven Queen would take him. 

He struggled to accept that the Raven Queen did not intend to take his life. Her neutrality, her sense of balancing the world’s scales, had seemed to indicate she would need to take a life to spare another. Him for Vex, and her ledgers would be even. 

He struggled to submit to her, to give himself over to her entirely. It was not the quick sacrifice he had envisioned, nor the torturous slow death he had begun to dream. He had flung himself forward into the unknown. It was not a cliff, or a pit, or a knife’s point, or even a tree covered in cawing ravens and draped in waiting ropes. 

It was life. It was living. It was continuing to put one foot in front of the other. 

Vax struggles, and finally submits.


	13. black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: black.  
> Warning: branding. 
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)
> 
> I love Thieves Guilds. And I love creepy initiation rites.

They pit they threw Vax into is deep, and very, very dark. Black as night. Black as pitch. Black as caves that never see the sun. 

“Find your way out,” they called to him, as they flung him down. “If you can’t, you’re not Clasp material.”

Too late Vax has sensed the potion in the goblet they’d made him drink from. Sickly-sweet, he’d feared poison at first, before a throbbing sensation had settled in his skull and drifted to his eyes. The lights had seemed to dim in the cavern. It wasn’t until they’d dragged Vax down a tunnel and flung him into the pit that he’d realized the potion had robbed him of his darkvision. 

He’s as helpless as a human down here now, effectively blind, feeling about with his hands. Vax finds a skull and has the good sense not to scream, not even when he finds more bones, some with bits of decaying flesh still stuck to them. Fellow initiates, he assumes, who failed their test. 

It takes time, but Vax finds grooves in the pit walls, handholds and footholds. It’s slow going, and he has no clear sense of how deep the pit is, nor any way of seeing potential holds above him. He has to feel his way up in increments. Several times Vax is faced with nothing in reach and must climb back down, shift to the side, and begin to rise again. 

When Vax finds the top at last he curls up on the floor and crawls, away from the pit and into emptiness. He finds a wall and shakily stands, keeping his shoulder to it. After what feels like hours, he sees light in the distance. Vax nearly cries, and approaches cautiously, the pinpricks of light nearly blinding in the darkness.

The glow is the dull orange of a forge, surrounded by hooded members of the Clasp. 

“Welcome, Vax’ildan,” the Spireling says. 

Two Clasp members take Vax, strip him of his shirt and bend his head down. 

He sees the brand being raised, an iron thing white-hot from the forge’s flames. Vax scarcely has a chance to feel the warmth of it before it sears into his flesh, marking him forever. 

He screams, and stares at the brand as it is returned to the forge’s fire. 

“You are one of us now,” the Spireling says. 

Vax wonders if perhaps it would have been better to have stayed in the blackness forever.


	14. class swap AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: class swap AU.  
> (Originally written in late December.)
> 
> What if Pike had followed in her family's footsteps? What if a cleric of Sarenrae told her there was another path?

She sees him in the market, preaching the Good Word. He’s not especially eloquent, but his faith makes up for that. There’s often a small crowd of worshippers, or just curious folks with a few moments to spare, circled around his meager pulpit. He towers over them all, a good head and a half higher than even the tallest man among the townsfolk. Goliaths are rare in cities, and this one stands out in his white and blue robes. 

At first she sneaks close thinking to steal from the distracted townsfolk. Something holds her back, though. It seems wrong, to rob those listening to the holy words. Not as bad as stealing in a church but still, wrong somehow. Better to stick to those lost in their drinks, or distracted in the houses of lady favors. That seems best. 

She lingers though, at the edges of the crowd. The goliath’s words ring out, bold and simplistic and booming. He speaks of redemption and healing. He speaks of warmth and light. He speaks of the sun.

Pike Trickfoot is a creature of darkness, a thief and a cutpurse, a companion of those who will never feel the touch of redemption. 

Listening to the goliath’s words, she wonders if perhaps it might be time to make a change.


	15. empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: empty.  
> Pairing: Pike/Percy
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)
> 
> *slams fist on table* More soft D/s fic! More Pike/Percy fic! More Pike dominating Percy fic!

Percy’s mind won’t stop. 

There’s always at least five different ideas clattering around in his mind, plans buzzing, designs scrawling, making his hands twitch for paper and his eyes lose focus. Sleep is a struggle and waking life is hardly easier. His attention is dragged to the four corners of the world. Focussing on any one thing in particular is something he’s had to force himself to accomplish, and sometimes even his best efforts fail. 

He yearns for quiet, for peace. He hasn’t felt it since childhood. His studies were difficult as a young man, but with Orthax things got worse. Sleep was elusive and fragmented, and even after Orthax it remains so. His hands shake and his legs twitch and there’s so much to do, too much to accomplish. 

The restfulness that death brings proves so tempting, he nearly does not return to Vox Machina. Once back, the rush of thoughts and dreams and plans is overwhelming. 

He wonders if he could invent a machine to drain his mind, or perhaps freeze his thoughts in place. For a few moments, a few hours.

Drugs slow him down, but still he twitches and still his mind races. He cannot empty his skull, short of feeding himself to an illithid, and he isn’t quite that desperate yet. 

Pike approaches him one night, while he’s toiling in his workshop, sweating and struggling, eyelids heavy but mind whirling too fast for sleep. 

“Percy, let me help you, please.” She shines as brightly as the forge. 

He opens his mouth to ask her how, and a dry croak escapes. Percy sighs heavily and gets up from the bench. 

“Would you kneel down for me?”

Anyone else, and Percy would protest, demand to know the reason. But he trusts Pike. He trusts Pike with his body and soul, because she has rescued both time and again. Slowly he kneels, eyeing her curiously. 

“We can try a few different ways. Hands in front or in back?” Pike asks.

Percy hesitates, then folds his wrists behind his back. 

Pike binds him, gently, then more tightly, with coils of soft rope. She loops it over his shoulders and over his chest, constricting him but not hurting him. 

“Close your eyes, listen to my voice.”

Percy does. He’s not shaking, but there’s tension in his body and his mind is overflowing. 

“I want you to imagine you’re on a ship. You’re drifting out at sea. The sun is warm, clouds are far, far above. You can hear the sails catching in the faintest of breezes.” Pike’s breath wafts over his cheek. “I want you to let go, Percy. For me. For you. Can you let go?”

Percy trembles. He wants to. He very much wants to. But can he?

“You hear the waves lapping at the sides of the ship. Slow, gentle, easy. You can just lay down now and close your eyes, the wind and the water will take you where you need to go.” Pike guides Percy down onto the floor, onto a blanket she must have laid out for this purpose when Percy shut his eyes. 

“Let go, Percy. You’re safe, the ship will take you far away,” Pike’s hands are on him, shifting his body from side to side in a mimicry of a ship’s movements. 

Percy concentrates on her voice, soothing sounds more than actual words. 

Gradually, Percy’s mind becomes shockingly, blissfully, empty.


	16. faint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: faint  
> Warning: mentions of torture
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)

Ank’harel is hot. Very, very hot. The dry heat that seems to sap the moisture from one’s body. Percy has chapped lips within an hour, his mouth feels dry and his eyes burn. Vaguely, he wonders if they could boil in his skull. 

His vision blurs, from his watering eyes he thinks at first, and then he is swaying. Or the buildings are swaying. His clothes feel hot, constricting, too much … 

… and suddenly he is very cold. Shivering, shaking, swaying. Sweat pours down his back but it chills him, feels like ice water. 

Anna had done that to him, deep in Whitestone’s dungeons. She’d drizzled ice water onto his bare back to watch him squirm. She’d slid icicles over his chained arms, leaving red raised patches of skin behind. When she’d started taking her knife to him, he hadn’t felt it at first, until she’d gone deep enough. 

Percy’s vision swam and he was falling, falling down a deep dark pit with no end. He heard Anna’s voice in his ear, promising to keep him alive for weeks before slitting his throat like swine for slaughter. He was so cold … she’d taken his clothes to make cutting him easier. 

Cold water splashed onto Percy’s face. He gasped and sat up, head throbbing. 

“Drink, slowly,” Vex murmured, pressing Grog’s jug to his lips. 

Percy drank, nearly choking. His mouth and throat felt as coarse and dry as the sand surrounding Ank’harel. 

“You fainted. Tell us, if you’re feeling the heat too much,” Vex said, brow knit with worry. 

“Yes,” Percy sloshed water down his chin by accident. “Yes, I’m … I’m sorry. 

He still felt the chill of Whitestone’s dungeons in his bones.


	17. paper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: paper.   
> Pairing: The Raven Queen/Vax
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)
> 
> Modern AU, the Raven Queen is a professor and Vax is NOT her student.

Vax watches her grade papers, late into the night. To stay awake, he reads over some of them, noting her grades and skimming her annotations and comments. She has a customized pen with a black feather grafted onto the end. 

“This seems a bit harsh,” he says, at the rather severe grade on what strikes him as a perfectly serviceable paper. 

“I am fair, not harsh,” she replies, not taking her eyes off her task. “They had ample time to prepare accordingly for my final judgement.”

He’s read her Rate My Professor page, and that does seem to be the prevailing consensus. She’s rated high on hotness too, though that’s apparent to anyone with eyes. 

“You’re ignoring me,” he stretches out on the couch in what he hopes is a provocative pose.

The movement draws her gaze momentarily. “You’re welcome to amuse yourself until I finish with this stack, Vax’ildan.” 

“Ok,” Vax grins and loudly unzips his pants. 

She doesn’t look up.

Vax was meaning just to joke, but he is getting a little bored, and her indifference is more than a little arousing. He wants to get her attention. He draws his cock out and starts to stroke himself off, slowly, making it last.

He starts to throw in a few moans. Her eyes roll, but her fingers start to tense slightly. 

After a particularly meaningful whimper, she sets down her pen. 

“I’m glad you were never my student,” she says, crossing over to join him on the couch and gently but firmly seizing his wrists. “You would have been a constant disruption in my classroom.”

Vax smiles. “Probably.”

“Hush now,” she pushes until he is laid out on the couch entirely flat, arms above his head. 

Vax closes his eyes and obeys.


	18. tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: tongue.  
> Pairing: Pike/Percy
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)
> 
> I just really wanted to write Pike riding Percy's face. The pirate roleplay came right outta nowhere. I should write more of this.

Percy has clever fingers. Always tinkering, inventing, repairing, constructing. Sliding bullets into chambers and pouring black powder in precise measurements. Holding his guns steady and pulling the triggers. Fiddling with his spectacles. Carding through his white hair. Tickling and tracing invisible patterns over Pike’s belly. Dipping lower, down between her legs, and tickling her there.

Tonight, though, Pike doesn’t want Percy’s fingers, clever though they are. 

Tonight, Pike wants to ride Percy’s face.

“Got you, de Rolo,” Pike beams down at Percy, bound hand and foot to her bed. He’s still half-dressed, in breeches and a thin undershirt, and there’s ropes looped around his chest and encircling his knees. 

“That you have, Captain Trickfoot,” Percy licks his lips as if in fear and stares up at her with wide eyes. “Whatever do you intend to do with me?”

“Mmm, so many possibilities,” Pike giggles, removing his spectacles and setting them aside. “I could toss you out to the crew, let them all have a taste of the heir to Whitestone. Or I could make you walk the plank, I hear the sharks are especially hungry this time of year.”

Percy shivers, feigning fear, when Pike knows if she turns around she’ll see him hard as a mast. 

“Or … you could convince me to keep you here in my cabin. My own personal treasure,” Pike settles her knees on either side of Percy’s head. “What’ll it be, de Rolo?”

Percy gazes up at her, stark adoration bleeding through the role he’d promised to play. “... yes. Please, let me … prove myself, to you.”

Pike unbuckles her belt and shimmies out of her pants, casting them aside. She went without undergarments today, and delights in Percy’s shocked expression before positioning herself over his face. “Don’t stop until you feel me cresting over that wave.”

Percy tastes her tentatively at first, as if this is the first time he’s ever done so to her, or perhaps to anyone. It’s sweet, his pretend innocence, but Pike soon grows impatient. She sinks lower, resting more of her weight on him and squeezing his head between her thighs. Rocking back and forth, she cuts off his air and allows him gasping breaths, over and over again. 

Soon Pike is moaning, unabashedly, pulling at Percy’s hair and demanding, ordering him for more, more. She feels his tongue curl and twist and nearly falls. Her knees go weak and her body spasms. Pike screams, slapping at the headboard, as her orgasm ripples through her.

Grinning, Pike clambers off of Percy’s face, now red from exertion and lack of breath, and slick with her fluids and his own saliva. 

“Not bad, not bad at all,” Pike thumps him on the chest. “Perhaps I’ll keep you in my cabin, de Rolo. No sense in ruining you quite yet.”

Percy trembles, all arousal now, not bothering to pretend to be afraid by the prospect. 

“Now, let’s see about cresting you over that wave …” Pike’s hand dips below Percy’s belt.


	19. true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: true.  
> Pairing: Percy/Vex, Percy/others  
> Warning: rape, torture, disturbing imagery, flashbacks, sexual assault
> 
> (Originally written in late December.)

“Scanlan told me something,” Vex says, as they lay beneath the blankets tangled together, sweaty and sated. “He said you never went with him and Grog to the ‘houses of lady favors,’ back when they used to do that after jobs where we got paid.”

Percy shrugs. 

“And that got me to thinking. I’ve never seen you go off with anyone after a job, or a quest. You never picked up anyone in a tavern, not when I could see. For years.”

Percy presses his lips together.

“Was I … have I … have you …” Vex shakes her head. “Not that it matters darling, really, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. I just, if you’d like to tell me, was that your first time?”

“Yes.” He says it too quickly. 

She tilts her head, eyes searching his face. “Is that true, darling?”

Percy closes his eyes. 

Delilah, petting him like a dog, her hands on him, cold hands and sharp nails and the jewels in her rings left unpolished and sharp enough to scratch his skin. The first time a woman had touched him there, grasping and pulling and he hadn’t been experienced enough to know what she’d wanted, how she’d wanted him to behave. She’d taken Julius instead and given Percy to … given him to … 

… to Anna. Anna, gloved hands and sharp knives cutting, flaying him open, spreading him wide for her to inspect, to dissect like an animal on her table, in her bed. Writhing beneath her and crying and screaming and begging for it to stop, for her to stop, stop hurting and taking and cutting. Once he’d begged her for more, and that had pleased her so much she’d given him a blanket that night. 

Sylas had come to Percy with his mouth still bloody from Julius. Delilah had arrived to pry her husband off of Percy’s limp and unresisting body, insisting they’d needed him alive for later. Percy had whimpered, though in relief or anguish he was never entirely certain. 

There was a man on the fishing boat. Holding him at night and pressing against him. Percy hadn’t been himself then, not really, barely remembered his own name, so had that counted at all? Had that happened to someone else, not Percy at all? Or had it merely been a very cold night and the man had held him for warmth?

A blacksmith, her hands rough and her eyes sharp, promising cast-off iron ingots for a favor in the back room. Her chapped lips scratching against his mouth before shoving him to his knees. Anna taught him well, the iron ingots are his in fifteen minutes. 

Guards in the prison, jeering at him. Filthy hands searching him for weapons, for money, for disease. Striking him in the face and fucking his bloody mouth. Saying it wasn’t a crime since he’d be dead by morning, hanged in the town square for attempting to murder a lady doctor. 

Percy opens his eyes. 

“Yes, it’s true.” He smiles at her. “You were the first I chose.”

Vex leans forward and kisses him.


End file.
